I think you’re missing the shade of grey here. Enslaving something for survival of your people, with noble intentions? Is it all that bad if given the above circumstance? Meh, not really. Is it the white knight way to go about things? Meh, not really either.
But I agree with what many others of said in this thread, at the start of bfa her character was in a position to go a few different ways. I think just about any other way woulda been better than what we got in bfa with her character.
Yes.
There’s a discussion to be had about whether doing a pitch black act for the sake of something good can be justified. But that doesn’t make the act itself ‘grey’, it’s still bad there’s just a reason for it to happen beyond just comic book levels of sadistic self interest.
Like, the entire concept of moral greyness is about not knowing what a right or wrong choice is in the moment it’s presented; is this thing actually good or is it bad? It’s not about… weighing the cost of something you know is wrong and deciding it’s worth the plunge.
Id argue no its not really that bad,
Say you dont enslave this valkyr, your entire species dies. Yikers, do you really think someone should just roll over and let their species go out like that? Why should they think they have to go out without doing anything?
Do the ends justify the means? Sure and here is why, saving your species and seconds chances. Say someone really screwed up in life and is now raised as a forsaken, by this queen of the valkyr. They now have a chance at redemption. An opportunity that would otherwise not be had.
I’d have a few issues with it. I don’t think a species has the right to abuse others if they’re going to go extinct. In the same way someone dying doesn’t have the right to steal someone’s organs. Or killing someone to harvest their organs to save ten people. It results in a bad practice to abuse for survival in that manner. Death unfortunately happens and that fact doesn’t give carte blanche.
Especially when the Forsaken race is more a subset of their former races than anything from just about a decade ago.
This is a false dilemma in that there’s a gradient of options between enslaving Valkyr and doing nothing. Be that asking for help (be that from the Valkyr or others) or researching further options (I’ve long supported something like the Draenei Vigilants being looked into as an idea or just taking more time to study necromancy), or building up good relations (instead of war) and seeing if the stigma against undead can be removed.
They have a chance at redemption in the afterlife. That’s the point of many of them.
So you bring up a lot of good points but also some random stuff that I dont think relates much.
The valkyr have the power to help yet they dont? Who is really the bad one here? Remember we are talking about the magical universe of wow. Its not like the forsaken are stealing their organs. Just using their magical prowess.
This is not a false dilemma at all. A very real one infact. A leader sometimes has to make very hard decisions.
Not necessarily. We actually see this with sylvs character, Dies a hero of her people and looks to be going to a pretty nice place, but is instead ripped out by arthas. After helping save the world she then goes to hell? The Maw dosent sound like a place where any can really achieve any form of redemption. Dunno about you, but that sounds like a terrible after life.
A. At the time it seemed like it was for her people’s benefit. Not her own.
B. On the hierarchy of villainy, it was way lower than the evil she’s done since.
Well we never see a discussion regarding it since it wasn’t brought up to them.
But I don’t think someone is bad for refusing to help someone in certain situations. I might have the money to pay for a life saving surgery for someone else, I don’t think I have a duty to do so. Or say you have a skilled surgeon that doesn’t feel like practicing medicine anymore, I don’t think they have a duty to keep working or do free surgeries.
I used organ harvest just as an example of harm since we’re talking about enslavement, since there’s not a great parallel for some aspects. If someone was dying and enslaving someone would somehow save them, I wouldn’t give it a pass.
I explained why it is false, because other options exist. It isn’t a comment on whether or not the choice is easy or hard.
A false dilemma is when two options are presented (in this case enslaving the Valkyr or not) when other options actually exist (as I listed above, cooperation or pursuing other research).
Most likely, though. The Maw isn’t a typical place to go.
‘After helping save the world’ kind of sugar coats a lot. I don’t know if we have the specific reasons why she went there? But if anything, she’s shown that a second chance isn’t great. She’s only been getting worse since then.
They don’t.
But conversely, if someone then steals your money or kidnaps that doctor to make that operation happen, I wouldn’t brand them an irredeemable villain either.
She’s only been getting worse since BFA.
I wouldn’t say irredeemable villain on that alone. But I would call the act bad.
Depends on how you look at it. If the idea she’s been in league with the Jailer since much longer, all her actions are in that context.
Well sure.
That’s the idea NOW. But I’m 100% convinced that’s a retcon and wasn’t the case when they were writing Legion.
Yeah, but in the face of what we do in Azeroth, a lot of characters including the PC themselves should be put under jurisdiction.
Face it or not, Sylvanas enslaving a few Valkyr to save her people would be among the lesser crimes in Azeroth and likely to be overlooked, especially considering that they are already kind of bound to service under Odin. If she uses those Valkyr to bring back people who want to live again, it might even lessen the evil of the act.
Another thing is, we don’t really know what she was going to do. Perhaps she could’ve offered them a deal- freedom from Odyn to explore the universe in exchange for service to the Forsaken.
As Irenaus pointed out, there were indeed other options Sylvanas could’ve explored rather than jumping directly to enslaving someone we needed as an ally against the Legion.
Like with the organ donation analogy (and with people like Zelling and Lorash Sunbeam, not to mention all the player Forsaken in the cata starting zone who chose to join the Forsaken rather than going their own way or returning to death) we know there are people who’d choose undeath over final death. Heck the cult of the damned shows there are apparently a large number of healthy, not-dying living people who chose to serve Arthas because they viewed becoming undead as a gift and a path to immortality.
That was a perfectly valid avenue to bolster the Forsaken’s ranks. Or she could’ve researched ways to ‘Nathanos-ify’ the already existing Forsaken without sacrificing so much of an individual Valkyr’s power (or require using a living relative as raw materials like they used his poor cousin for) >_>
Nowhere, honestly. Making her the face of a faction was always going to be a mistake. You don’t redeem the perpetrator of ethnic cleansing and not have it come across as hackneyed garbage, and conversely you can’t lean into her villainy without ticking off a large section of the fanbase. She never should have been warchief.
I don’t know what you mean by put under jurisdiction from the context.
Well obviously enslaving a few people is relatively small. Doesn’t make it good.
Again, I don’t know the context. By the Horde? Probably. By the Alliance? Less sure. By the audience? Unlikely.
Lessen, but not remove.
I’m pretty sure it was confirmed she was planning on enslaving them.
Yes I do. It wasn’t foreshadowed at all. To say that it seems to ignore her story. In contrary all of her characterization went in to the opposite direction. She became more “caring” and started to see more even the Horde as a whole as a positive thing.
She even respected Vol’jin and felt for him. A Troll. Sylvanas hated Trolls in the past (understandably in live).
What could have happened? Simply don’t make her warchief. The Legion and BfA cinematics showed what was possible.
To beat my dead horse.
The Legion blurb hinted that after being made Warchief, her character struggle would be to her own selfish desires or that of the Horde. This implied that over the course of the expansion and future ones she’d actually grow as a person again and properly earn the admiration and loyalty of the the Horde, and finally move out of the whole “I’m only here because it benefits me!” shtick she’s been in a while and truly became a honored member of the Horde.
You and I both know the Forsaken have gotten away with smaller crimes since Vanilla and nobody bat an eye. But the same applies to several other races like dwarves and orcs.
Who do we paint as not evil in this light? I think morally grey is a venue that most races, sooner or later, have to undertake. So long as it doesn’t get into unconditional evil territory.
Again, I don’t know what you mean by gotten away with.
This argument comes up again and again, as if you want a free pass for the Horde to commit crimes against the Alliance nations, knowing that the Alliance will never pay back the same with the same. I mean, this argument comes up again and again and again and it’s always been nonsense, actually.
By gotten away, I mean the Alliance, the Horde and the audience aren’t bothered by it enough to act on it or complain about it.